Entertainment

Charlie Sheen, the Grand Warlock of insanity, is getting the full Comedy Central Roast experience. Sheen will surrender himself to the vulgar praise and deep insults only a dais of angry comedians can dish out. While the roast actually took place last weekend, it won't air until September 19.

Comedy Central was not content to let the crazy speak for itself, and has therefore relaunched and re-developed a set of social tools to get the audience more engaged than ever before. Anyone who watched Sheen's promo vids or spotted online ads was immediately supplied with two main hashtags: #SheenRoast and #CrazyTrain. Comedy Central is incorporating those into a digital dashboard where fans can play along, comment, interact with other participants and share with their social networks.

We stopped by Comedy Central for an advance preview of the new dashboard, and to talk about how digital is the new frontier for the network.

The Charlie Sheen Dashboard

Comedy Central got the idea for a social media dashboard after seeing the huge social response to its Donald Trump Roast. Not only did people tweet furiously during the show's airing, but fans began interacting with the roasters who also were online. Comedy Central's analytics team also noticed that the highest volume of tweets and mentions correlated to ratings bumps and show highlights.

Once The Sheen was confirmed as the next roast target, the team got to work boosting the show's social presence. There are four main parts of the dashboard, which will live on Comedy Central's website. At the top-left is the "Charlie Cam" which will stay locked on Sheen throughout the broadcast even as other people are presenting or cracking wise. The top-right has a section where users can tweet or post about the show, and the red graph shows the cumulative amount of tweets by volume. The middle section is called "Share the Burn." Throughout the broadcast, short video clips will appear in the timeline which users can also post to their social networks. These clips are curated by the Comedy Central team who promises about two to four clips per roaster. The team actually looked at Twitter traffic when the show was taped to help spot top jokes and buzz-worthy moments.

The final section is a Twitter visualization tool. The heads of everyone on stage are surrounded by color-coded rings, with the size of the head indicating their current popularity and the rings corresponding to hot topics. The darker the color, the more it's trending. The size of the ring shows how much that topic is talked about by that particular person. For example, "Tiger Blood" might be a light color but occupy a large ring whereas more specific references like Chuck Lorre might be addressed intensely over a shorter period of time.

Users can dig into the visualization tool and search by theme, category or person. For example, clicking on Steve-O will reveal his full Twitter feed, as well as a category drop-down of jokes he's cracked.

Comedy Central Is Going Social

Comedy Central is not the first network to recognize the benefits of social TV. However, it is certainly one of the most gung-ho about pressing social for all it's worth. On the night of the broadcast, every moment of the show will correspond with a slew of onscreen social cues. Roasters' Twitter handles will appear at the bottom of the screen along with the show's #SheenRoast hashtag, and other ways to get social. In fact, half of the show's red carpet will only be available online with the second half kicking off the official broadcast.

That spirit runs through all of Comedy Central's shows, says Steve Grimes, Comedy Central's SVP of Digital Media. The network has tried including thematic hashtags in popular shows like South Park, and has put its support behind digitally-minded shows like Tosh.0 and The Colbert Report. In all cases, Grimes says the entire network is taking a look at their properties and asking, "What is the best social representation for this show?"

A Preview of the Roast

Of course, none of those social elements can succeed without great content. The confirmation of Sheen, a prolific tweeter and social media ... enthusiast ... was the perfect catalyst for Comedy Central to ramp up its social offerings. The nice thing about adding social to a roast is that, presumably, everyone involved is funny. The team is hoping that momentum can carry the dashboard, even if some participants stop tweeting: "Once you've got the ball rolling, if one of the dais members isn't [digitally] there, it wouldn't feel like a void," says Grimes.

While we couldn't make it to LA for the roast, we did manage to catch some of the brutal jokes second-hand. Watch out for some serious zingers and view some of the best clips below. Let us know in the comments what you think of Comedy Central's take on social TV — and if you think the Sheen Roast will be as crazy as its hype.

"Sheenpocalypse Now"

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